


The Captive Knight

by RobberBaroness



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Captivity, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Mordred has Galahad as his prisoner- now if only he could figure out what to do next.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	The Captive Knight

For all his wickedness, Mordred had never actually tortured anyone. He’d be strong enough to stomach it, he was sure, but he was a warrior, not some small-time jailor with a fondness for causing pain. The boy wasn’t making it easy, though, what with his stubborn arrogance in the face of overwhelming danger.

“Whatever you do to me, Saint Catherine will have suffered worse. It took Our Lord hours to die at the hands of fiends, and still he cried out for them to be forgiven.” Even in chains, Galahad still managed to look smug. “Whatever your desires, better that you exact them upon me, a knight with the physical strength to endure it, rather than on some poor peasant girl.”

Who insulted their captor with a smile on their face? Galahad was as mad as his father.

“Shut up,” Mordred snarled. “Or I’ll cut your pretty little throat and you’ll never recite your prayers again.”

“The last words from my dying lips will be a prayer for your soul nevertheless,” said Galahad, not even breaking eye contact. Mordred couldn’t take it anymore. He reached for his sword- he could be creative with that, surely- and held it up to Galahad’s cheek. Perhaps the holy little bastard would be less smug with his face disfigured.

Or perhaps it would be giving him exactly what he wanted. He’d embarked on the entire grail quest in order to martyr himself, hadn’t he? And now he could cast himself as Christ and Mordred as a centurion, and allow his soul to escape into religious ecstasies while his body was torn and broken.

No. Mordred could not allow him that escape.

“What of the others you travel with?” Mordred asked, suddenly seizing upon an idea. “Will they be as stoic as you? Percival will hardly even understand what it is that I’m doing to him, Bors will grunt and curse me as he always does, your father may even welcome death at my hands...but what about Dindrane?”

It was a wild stab in the dark, but it struck. The smug look on Galahad’s face vanished, leaving a visage drained of all life. Mordred had often wondered what the relationship between the holy knight and the grail maiden was, but the exact nature didn’t matter. All that mattered was that her safety could be used to torment Galahad.

The fact that he had no idea where Dindrane or any of the other grail knights were didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Galahad thought she was in his power.

“Dindrane is very beautiful,” he said casually. “It seems a shame to think she’s saving that beauty for some heavenly husband.”

“You can’t…” Galahad whispered. “You can’t…”

Mordred laughed.

“Not so pure and holy after all, are we! There are still thoughts of lust and beauty within that sweet mind of yours.”

“Please.” Galahad wetted his drying lips. “Whatever you want, you can find it in me. They- they used to say I looked like a woman…”

Mordred recoiled. This little game of his suddenly wasn’t fun anymore. He’d expected curses, he’d expected tears- he hadn’t expected the holiest knight in Camelot to offer to degrade himself in exchange for his true love’s safety.

He’d won. He’d proven Galahad had a breaking point. So why didn’t it feel like he’d won? Why did it only feel like he’d proven himself the sort of base scum his enemies had always said he was? Not a proud warlord leading an army to wipe out the old ways, but a slithering serpent who struck at the heel?

Would Morgan applaud him at the victory he had found, or would she be disgusted?  _ Uther’s grandson _ , he could almost hear her say.

“What makes you think I want you?” he sneered at Galahad. It was a childish retort, but it was all he could think of.

“You don’t want any of this,” said Galahad. To Mordred’s dismay, the boy seemed to be recovering from his earlier terror. “If you cut me apart, if you hurt Dindrane, if you seize Guinevere, if you kill your own father, none of it will make you happy. You’ve told yourself that it will, but what will happen next? What will happen when you sit atop a throne made of your own sins, basking in the hatred of all who know you? What will you do? How will you find happiness? Because I guarantee, none of those things will make you happy.”

Mordred raised his sword.

“And freeing you will?”

“I cannot say. I do not know your soul. But it will give you a chance. It will free you from a destiny you never chose, and what is happiness if not that freedom?”

He should kill the boy now. Kill him before he spoke another self-righteous word about a life he didn’t understand. So the boy was a fellow bastard. So what? That didn’t mean he knew anything about Mordred or what his life had been like. How dare he pretend that he did?

“You don’t know me,” Mordred said, the words coming out far weaker than he’d intended.

“Perhaps not, but I’m learning.”

Mordred cast aside his sword impatiently. This whole thing was a waste of time. He ought to just leave the holy little choir boy to starve for several days and see how his bravery withstood the human pangs of hunger. He stalked towards the door and gazed back at Galahad, who looked up at him with his sad blue eyes.

Somehow, Mordred knew he’d break and give the boy food before Galahad broke and begged for it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try. He could strive to be as ruthless as he’d always intended, and who knew? Perhaps he would even succeed, so long as it didn’t mean getting his own hands dirty. The thought wasn’t much of a consolation.

“I’ll still pray for you,” said Galahad, and Mordred tried to block those words from his ears as he slammed the door closed behind him.


End file.
